If It's Holding You Back
by passionsanddevotions
Summary: Belle needs to take some time away from Storybrooke. She ends up in Scotland and befriends a man who looks rather astoundingly like her True Love. This story is about a friendship between Belle and Begbie. Belle is still in a relationship with Rumplestiltskin.


Belle cursed as she walked into the bar. The whole point of this trip had been to get away from Rumplestiltskin for a while, so she couldn't explain why she'd decided to come to a country filled with people who spoke with an accent just like he had. But the pictures in the brochures had all looked so pretty, so she had decided to come. She had been in Scotland a week so far; Jefferson called every night to check up on her - make sure she was okay and see what adventures she had been on during the day. He was the closest thing to a friend she really had at the moment.

She hadn't been on speaking terms with Ruby since she'd recovered her memories - that the wolf girl would leave her trapped and forcibly drugged in a hospital on top of _lying_ to her sat very uneasily with Belle. She had explained it to Ruby in a lengthy rant and hadn't talked to the other girl since. But that had been a fortnight ago and it hurt her to have lost Ruby as a friend.

Belle wasn't mending bridges with Snow and Charming either. They had left her in the hospital scared and alone and had let not only Regina, but Hook and Cora too, roam around free.

She was on better terms with Emma and Henry, but though Emma had been horrified by the treatment Belle had received, the blonde woman couldn't bring herself to stand against her family. Belle understood that. Not that there would be much standing - Snow and Charming had seemed rather contrite about the fear and pain caused to her. It wasn't enough though.

The bar was a bit loud for Belle's tastes. Some music she didn't recognize was playing in the background, but most of the noise was people talking and the loud _clinks_ of balls from the various pool tables. She seated herself at the bar and ordered a cider, sipping at it as she let her mind drift back across the Atlantic.

To Rumplestiltskin. Well, at least he was obviously on her side. When he had returned to Storybrooke he had actually found a way to restore her memories to her fairly quickly. He'd been right to think she needed a talisman, but his choice of object had been wrong - not to mention he'd been too pushy in trying to get her to look at the cup when he brought it.

Strangely enough it had been Bae who had found the right talisman, though she still wasn't sure how. Rum had shown up at the hospital and given her a cracked wooden peg with a small hole through the middle of it. Everything had come back to her immediately. It was a tension peg for his wheel in the Dark Castle.

One night, some months into her employment with him, after a particularly bad deal, Rumplestiltskin had been more tense than she had ever seen him. He'd tried to calm himself through spinning, but he fiddled with all of the attachments on the wheel constantly, unhappy with how anything was working. He had turned the tension peg too hard and it had cracked - useless. He had cursed and stormed up to his tower to retrieve another one, replacing it before throwing the old peg to the floor and locking himself in his rooms for nearly a week.

Belle had picked up the old peg and, though she had meant to throw it into the fire, she couldn't bring herself to drop it. The dark wood was polished beautifully just from his hands touching it so often over the years. She had clutched it tightly in her hand and then dropped it into her pocket. It had become important to her, as she got to know him better, to have this small piece of something that was his. He was so hesitant to share anything about himself. It made her feel closer to him to have the small piece of wood around her.

He didn't know about it, so she left it on her bedside table, lest it fall out of a pocket while she was doing some chore and he insist she throw it away. It had taken her rather a long time to admit to herself that she missed him when he went away, but thereafter she had slept with the small piece of wood clutched in her hand when he was away on deals and it gave her some deal of reassurance that he would be back, easing her mind.

She didn't know how she had failed to bring it with her when he sent her from the Dark Castle. Her only excuse was that she was so angry and hurt and confused when she gathered up her things and that she wasn't accustomed to bringing it anywhere with her. She had realized when she took a room at an inn the night she left that she didn't have it with her. The loss of that tiny attachment she had to the man she had come to love had hurt her deeply and she had cried herself to sleep that night.

After the loss sleep never came to her as easy as it had with the tension peg in her hand - not until she had woken up to herself in Storybrooke and been able to sleep beside her love. He eased her more than the peg could hope to do, but it was a good substitute.

Belle reached down and pulled it out of her purse, running her fingers over and over the crack in the top of it. She missed him, even now. She had left Storybrooke because they fought. He had her back and he had his son back, but he still wasn't listening to either of them. Belle at least understood that he needed to retain his magic in the face of Regina and Cora. The two women were dangerous and it would be foolish to get rid of any possible advantage they had.

But Rum still wanted to use magic for things he didn't need to use it for. For things he shouldn't use it for. He wanted to use it to fix his relationship with Bae, return his son to a child of fourteen without the memories of abandonment. But that wasn't fair to anyone. Rum was having a hard time seeing that.

He was hurting right now and Belle hated abandoning him. He called her cell every morning and every night. She didn't answer. She couldn't. She needed a chance to be away from him, as well as away from everyone else in Storybrooke who had failed her, and she knew that if she listened to his voice she'd be on the first flight back to the states. Emma had suggested that she leave town for three weeks and Belle was determined to stick to that plan. She brushed her thumb over the crack in the wood one more time before dropping it back into her purse, ready to return to her hotel and wait for Jefferson's call before heading to bed for the night.

She left some money on the bar, but as she stepped off of the bar stool someone shoved bodily into her side. Her shoes, with their three inch heels, were hardly made for stability and she ended up on her arse, her head cracking against the legs of one of the bar stools.

The group of men brawling directly in front of her hadn't even noticed her fall, nor even her existence it seemed as one man attempted to throw the beer in his glass at another man and it ended up largely over her, making her hair wet and sticky and covering her rose coloured lace blouse and her navy skirt.

Belle was furious as she stood up, wet and sticky from the beer and whatever the _hell_ had been on the floor, her head aching from hitting the stool, though the blow hadn't broken the skin, she wasn't bleeding. None of the men had so much as noticed what had happened, and they were between her and the door out.

"Enough!" Belle screamed. She felt gratified when everyone actually came to a halt and turned to her. "What the bloody hell is wrong with all of you? You're men, not animals. If you're going to act like idiots, at least pay attention to your surroundings, would you? Now, if you'd kindly move aside, I'd like to leave."

A man stepped out of the crowd and Belle gasped, her eyes going wide.

"Well, since y'asked so politely, girlie, I s'pose we could let ye through." He looked exactly like Rumplestiltskin did as a man. Or rather what Rumplestiltskin might have looked like as a man were he some fifteen years younger, and if he had a rather awful mustache. But he was an exact match and Belle couldn't stop herself from stepping forward and reaching a hand out to his face.

But he recoiled from her quickly, glaring at her. "What the fuck d'ye think ye're doin?"

Belle just grabbed her coat and fled through the opening the brawling men had left to the door. One she was outside she pulled on her coat and started walking determinedly towards her hotel. She was less than thrilled, though not quite surprised, when she heard him call out from behind her.

"Oi! Girlie!" He was moving a lot faster than she was, in her heels. She wasn't afraid of him, per se. she had a feeling she didn't really need to worry about him harming her. But then again she might just be projecting those feelings because he looked so much like Rum. That was why she didn't want to turn around, really. It hurt to see her love's face and she was having a hard enough time staying away from Storybrooke as it was.

He was directly behind her now and she felt him grip her shoulder and turn her around. "Oi. I asked ye what the fuck tha' was back there."

Belle shook her head without raising her eyes to his. "You just - look like someone I know. Sorry." She ripped her shoulder out of his grasp and walked away.

The next night she was back at the same bar. Seeing the man's face had made her heart ache for want of being with Rumplestiltskin again. But it had also eased the pain a bit at the same time. And she needed to give Rum space to figure himself out just as much as she needed the space to figure herself out. So she returned to the bar in hopes of seeing the brash man with Rumple's face.

It seemed she was in luck, he was at one of the pool tables. She seated herself at the bar again, this time closer to the entrance in case she needed to escape again, and ordered a cider, glancing up at the man periodically while she sipped her drink. When she glanced up yet again and found him looking at her, glaring really, she nearly choked on her drink and tried to keep her eyes from him as he tossed his pool cue at one of the other players and strutted over to the bar.

"Back again, eh Girlie? What'd'ye want this time?"

"Nothing." Belle refused to let herself look at him. He was too close now.

"Ye've been starin' at me across the fuckin' room for more'n a fuckin' hour now. It sure as fuck isn't nothin'. I dinnae like people watchin' me, Girlie."

She frowned and nodded. "Yeah, sorry." She lifted her head to smile briefly at him. "I'll be leaving now." She dropped a bill on the bar for her drink and walked out. He didn't follow her.

As she walked to the bar on the third night she told herself over and over again that she was crazy. But she couldn't stop herself from going; she was drawn to the man, and it suddenly occurred to her that she had no idea what his name was, and she didn't really know why. She wasn't attracted to him sexually, at least not past what his similarities to Rumple encouraged, but she was definitely drawn to him.

But he clearly didn't like her hanging around and she could hardly blame him for that. Who would want a stranger watching them all the time? She also worried that if she kept this up, if he didn't come to hate her more than he already did, he might develop and attraction. By seeing him every night, she'd only be encouraging something of that nature.

Yet even with all these reasons not to go, still she went.

He was there. Of course he was. In the familiar tight black slacks and argyle jumper. Green tonight. Playing a game of pool, like usual. How strange, Belle thought, that she could determine his usual habits within three days. She was careful not to make eye contact with him again, or to let him catch her looking at him.

Her attention was pulled away, however when a man bumped into her lightly while sitting next to her. He immediately blushed and stuck out his hand to steady her.

"Oh, I'm so sorry. Are you alright?"

He looked so worried, though he had barely brushed her, and Belle smiled. "I'm fine."

He smiled back and nodded at her. "Good." He sat down and held his hand out to her. "I'm Douglas." His accent was English, not Scottish - a good deal easier to understand than a lot of the thick brogues in the bar. He was of average height and slight, with close cropped blonde hair and brown eyes.

She shook his hand. "I'm Belle. It's nice to meet you."

"I've seen you in here a couple of nights now. You looked like you might like someone to talk to? I thought I could lend an ear."

Belle smoothed her skirt out to give her hands something to do. "Oh, no. I'm fine, really. And I, uh - I'm sort of already in a relationship with someone."

Douglas blushed and leaned further away from her, stammering over his words. "Oh, no! I wasn't - Sorry. I wasn't trying to pick you up or anything. Honestly. I just - you really looked like you had a lot on your mind, but you were always sitting alone. I thought - thought it might help to unload everything on a stranger."

Belle covered a smile with her hand. "Sorry. I shouldn't have assumed - "

Douglas brushed her off. "Nah. Blokes, right? Probably best to assume the worst, because it usually is. But no worries, you're uh - not really my type." He coughed. "No offense meant, you're very pretty, just a bit, you know," he gestured at her, "Female."

Belle laughed and Douglas grinned. "I see. Well, good then."

Douglas sobered a bit. "So did you need someone to talk to? Honestly I'm happy to help."

Belle smiled and shook her head. "Just relationships."

"Ah. Complicated things, them."

Belle nodded. "They certainly are."

He glanced behind her. "Speaking of, it looks like your boyfriend is headed over here, and he doesn't look too happy to see me. I'll leave you be. It was nice to meet you, Belle." And with that he smiled and walked over to a group of men at the other end of the bar.

"So it's Belle, is it Girlie?"

She turned to look at the man who's name she still didn't know and watched his eyes track Douglas back to his group of friends. He looked angry, but there was something else in his

eyes, something that definitely wasn't anger. Interesting.

"Belle, yes. Belle French." She held her hand out for him to shake as if this was their first meeting, not the third.

He eyed her warily, but took the hand. "Begbie. Francis Begbie." He took the seat next to her. "Why d'ye keep comin' back here, Girlie?"

She looked at him appraisingly. "His name is Douglas."

"Why do I fuckin' care what his name is?"

He was so . . . tough. Worse even than Rumple. He was nervous next to her, though the gods only knew why, she was nothing to be worried about, and he was trying to cover his nervousness with brashness.

"He was cute though, don't you think?"

Now he was angry. "What the fuck are ye tryin' ti say Girlie?" he snarled. He was off of his stool and pushing his face in close to hers. "I'm no' a fuckin' buftie."

Belle supposed she ought to be frightened of him. He was twitching with rage and even in just the last few days she had seen him get into fights fairly often and pull a knife more than once. And yet she wasn't scared. She supposed a good deal of that might be because she'd dealt with the Evil Queen, the Queen of Hearts, and Captain Hook and come out the victor. And then of course there was Rumplestiltskin. She had some experience dealing with hard-headed men who were too afraid to express themselves in any way other than anger.

So she calmly placed a bill on the counter for her drink and got off of her stool. "Okay." she said as she leaned towards him and shrugged. And then she left the bar. He didn't follow.

On the fourth night Francis wasn't at the bar. When he wasn't there on the fifth night either, Belle worried that he might have gotten himself into trouble. He seemed the type. She was relieved when he walked in a bit later than her. But he was slightly shaky and as soon as he saw her his eyes widened and he fled right back out of the building. Belle hadn't ordered anything yet, so she just grabbed her coat and rushed out after him.

She didn't know how she could care so much for someone she had met less than a week ago, but he was clearly in some sort of distress and she was worried.

She saw him hurrying up the street ahead of her, hunched into his coat, and called his name, not for the first time cursing the heeled shoes that wouldn't allow her to properly run after him. "Francis! Stop for a second."

He did, though he didn't turn to face her and she could see how badly he was shaking with tension. "Francis, what's wrong? What happened?" She reached out to touch his shoulder. He jerked back from her at the contact and whipped around.

"Why'd ye have ti say tha'? Th'other nigh'?" He was shouting and Belle was glad no one else was on the street, more for his sake than for hers. "I'm no fuckin' poof. Tha's a fuckin' lie."

"I never said you were, Francis."

"Aye, well ye fuckin' well implied it didn't ye!"

"Francis, your sexuality is your own business, not mine."

"Aye, fuckin' righ' it's no'!"

"But it doesn't matter. It's alright to feel however you feel."

"No, it isnae fuckin' alright."

He continued to yell, but his speed and accent had gotten such that Belle couldn't understand anymore of what he was trying to say.

"Francis! Francis!" She grabbed onto his arms and he actually stopped yelling when he was deprived of the ability to gesture with his words. She was distressed to find that she could actually see tears in his eyes - men like Francis Begbie did not cry easily. "Just - come with me, alright?" She took him by the hand and he followed her obediently to her hotel room.

Again it occurred to Belle that she ought probably to worry about bringing strange, angry, violent men to a hotel room where she would be alone with them, but again she wasn't worried at all. She sat him on the sofa, leaving him looking a bit stunned at the decor. Between Rum and Jefferson, there was no way she'd be staying in anything less than a 4-star establishment, and it had taken a great deal of negotiation to get it down even that far. She would have been happy to stay in any small bed and breakfast, but she hadn't been willing to put the effort into arguing with arguably the two most important men in her life - her True Love and her Best Friend.

She disappeared into the small kitchenette to put the kettle on and then went back out into the sitting room. She took Francis' coat and hung it up along with hers in the closet before slipping her heels off and leaving them there as well. All that accomplished, the kettle went off and she made tea before returning to sit in a chair across a small coffee table from the seriously troubled-looking Scotsman.

"So." She handed him his tea - he still seemed in a bit of a stupor. "What's happened? And please try not to shout."

His hands were shaking as he opened his mouth and he snarled as he set the cup down harshly on the small table and jumped up, pacing back and forth in front of the sofa.

Franco was more on edge than he could ever remember being in his fucking life.

He had no fucking idea what he was doing here. Ever since this pretty little bint, Belle, had shown up five fucking days ago, his entire life had fallen to utter shit. Or at least it seemed like it to him. He wasn't thinking straight. And that would have been fucking fine by him if he'd been distracted for the right reason. If he'd been too preoccupied thinking about her cunt and fucking her, that would have been fine. Instead he'd been completely off his rocker since he had seen her and there was absolutely nothing sexual.

The first night he had seen her, when she broke up a bar fight, tiny as she was and wearing heels and a skirt, he had been nothing less than entranced. She had interested him immediately. Then the staring had started. Silly bird couldn't keep her eyes off of him. And fuck him, but he hadn't been able to stay away from her either.

And then she had mentioned the boy. Fucking little bastard. 'Cute', she had called him, and later that night Franco had wanted to cut off his own dick because his first instinct for a fucking response to her statement had been agreement. He had avoided her the next night, so fucking paranoid that she and everyone else would be able to see that he'd wanted to agree with her.

And fuck her bloody, the fucking thought had stuck with him all the next day. Today. Which led to tonight. And everything that had happened before he'd gone to rant at her at the bar. Fuck, but he really needed to smash something. But he couldn't bring himself to wreck the fancy-ass hotel room she was staying in. And fuck, but who could afford shit like this? He should have fucking expected based on the clothes she wore every day.

"Francis?" he looked up as she called his name. "Did you do something tonight?" And fuck, she knew didn't she. She was looking at him like she bloody fucking _knew_ what he had done.

He had no fucking clue how to answer her. No fucking idea how to talk at all. He couldn't do anything but continue to pace and snarl.

Belle sighed. "Okay, look. I think I know what happened, so I'm just going to ask. You don't have to talk about anything you don't want to, but you look like you're bursting at the seams. I think you need to talk about it."

He just growled and clenched his fists, pacing ever more furiously.

"Francis, did you have sex with a man before you came to the bar tonight?"

It took more than ten hits before his fist went through the wall. Bloody rich ponces and their fucking thick walls. He noticed absently that not only had he broken through the wall, but he was now bloodying up the wallpaper since he'd ripped his knuckles apart.

His arm hurt and ten punches should bloody well not tire him this much. But he sunk to the floor and leaned his head forward on his knees. He had no fucking clue where Belle was and wasn't that a fucking surprise. He'd only punched in her wall after she figured out he'd fucked a man for fuck's sakes. Who the fuck would stick around after that.

He flinched hard when he felt a hand on his shoulder before growling at himself for being such a fucking pussy. Belle had knelt next to him with a bowl of warm water and a cloth which she started to press to his knuckles.

"Francis . . ." she sounded sad. What kind of a stupid fucking reaction was that? Disgusted, angry, sure. But why the fuck would anyone be sad?

"Francis, you don't need to hurt yourself. Look, I know you're not happy about what happened, about how you felt . . . Did you at least enjoy yourself?"

He shuddered as he remembered what it had felt like to have his cock grasped so tightly in the younger man's arse. Better than any cunt he'd ever been inside. He tried to wrench himself away from her, but Belle kept a good grip on his arm. She touched his cheek softly and turned him to face her.

"Francis. It's okay that you liked it. You're allowed to enjoy whatever suits you. Don't deny yourself things like this. It's not going to make you any happier."

He wanted to lash out, at her, at something, at anything, but he didn't even fucking know how to do that anymore.

Francis had opted to stay with her. He's never asked out loud, but he hadn't tried to leave the hotel room and she hadn't asked him to leave. Where ever his head was at the moment, it wasn't a happy or healthy place for him.

Belle opted to leave his problem alone unless he brought it up. He only did so once, the night after the incident with the wall. He'd been angry and had spewed a lot of vitriol, all directed at himself. Belle had felt a physical pain in her chest that he was so completely at odds with himself. He seemed to calm down after she spoke to him and reassured him that she didn't think any worse of him. She hoped it had helped a bit.

In place of discussing him, she had told him about her life. She'd told him about the Enchanted Forest, guessing rightly that he would laugh it off as some eccentricity of hers. Gods knew he already found her strange enough after seeing her read every night - he wasn't much for books. And she'd told him about Rum and the struggles in their relationship. Francis had agreed that Rumple needed to give up whatever Belle was using the magic as a metaphor for. She had told him about Jefferson, and about the people she used to count as friends. He'd gone on a very long and very colourful rant after hearing about the forced hospitalization and the tranquillizers. He had obviously become very fond of her and Belle was glad because she'd become rather fond of him as well, gruff and harsh worded as he was.

"So. Ye're leavin' are ye?"

Belle looked up from the clothes she was folding into her suitcase to find Francis standing in the door to her bedroom. She smiled a bit sadly. "Yeah. It's time to go home and face my problems."

Francis was never an open person, but his face seemed to shut down a bit at that. "Right."

Belle looked at him intently. "Did you - I don't know. Did you maybe want to . . . come with me?" It would be nice to have another person she could count on in Storybrooke, and he would provide a brilliant shield between her and anyone she didn't want to see.

He looked at her warily. "Why the fuck would ye want me ti come with ye?"

Belle shrugged. "It'd be nice to have a friend other than Jefferson somewhere nearby."

"And am I yer friend, Girlie?"

Belle shrugged and smiled. "I'd like you to be, if you want."

She watched his mouth twitch into a smile. "Then aye. I suppose I could go wi' ye. Not like I've go' anythin' here to hang around for anyways."

Belle grinned and nodded. "Good."


End file.
